Three figures crossing a small bridge in the foreground, including a monk and an attendant, occupy a minute portion of the vast landscape in this painting. Demanding attention are the steep, soaring mountains, articulated alternately in sharp outlines and soft washes, and the overall evocative, misty setting. The seemingly generic landscape may represent one of the views included in a classic Chinese theme in painting and poetry known as the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers—most likely, the scene known as "Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple." The painting follows the standard formula of a Buddhist monk traversing a bridge in a mist-shrouded mountain valley on the way to his temple; it is not uncommon, as here, for the temple itself not to be depicted.The same theme is illustrated on one of a pair of hanging scrolls also in the Museum's collection (1987.278b), where, conversely, the temple complex is visible but the travelers are not.

Provenance

[ Vladmir G. Simkhovitch , 1918; sold to MMA]

Exhibition History

New York. Asia Society. "The Story of a Painting: The Korean Buddhist Treasure from the Burke Foundation," April 23, 1991–July 28, 1991.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arts of Korea," January 14, 2005–October 29, 2006.